Chronology

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Contents

Sypnosis

Nate gets paired up with Gina in a class project, much to their dismay. Meanwhile in the side plot, Nate is a captain of his own fleeceball team for the SPOFFs, which includes Gina, competing to win the Spoffy against Randy Betancourt. Nate is worried that Gina will ruin his fleece ball team and Gina is worried that Nate will ruin their project, though in the end neither does.

Plot

At the beginning of the book, Gina Hemphill-Toms humiliates Nate Wright over a baby picture. When they head for the classroom in order to begin first period, Nate briefly describes Gina before Mrs. Godfrey calls the class to be silent. She then hands out projects to everyone - book reports about Benjamin Franklin. Nate and Gina were paired together, making both of them furious. At the time this happened, the game of the season is fleeceball. Because he was one of the sports captains, Nate Wright was confident he and his team would win. In the early stages, Nate drafts at least one dozen names for his team. When he learned he was the captain of the team, Randy showed up and taunted him, and Nate told him there was an advantage he was missing. Aftr he convinced Randy to follow him, Nate pummeled him with his locker, causing Randy much humiliation as well as an obsession with revenge against Nate.

After Nate attempted to make a science project interesting by dressing up as the superhero Batman, Mr. Galvin sent him to the library to "occupy" himself. Nate began playing on the beanbag chairs until Mrs. Hickson showed up. As a result, Nate had missed the captains' meeting and forgot telling Coach Calhoun the name of his team, causing him to lose some advantages and getting a horrible start to the season. Whn he finally arrived, he learned Gina Hemphill-Toms, another great enemy of his, had joined the team and that Calhoun had allowed her to name them the Kuddle Kittens. The team's etymology is soon revealed to be off Gina's stuffed cat, named Kuddles. In the first match, the Kuddle Kittens lost when Gina distracted Nate from hitting the ball. Furious, Nate called interference to Calhoun, but Calhoun said interference could not be called on a fellow teammate. Afterwards, they continued against several other teams, and won every time. Nate also included much information concerning the event in "Poor Nate's Almanac," which is obviously named after "Poor Richard's Almanac," which was published by Benjamin Franklin.

In the final game, which pitted the Kuddle Kittens (Nate's team) against the Raptors (Randy's team), Randy purposely stomped on Nate's foot, swelling it in an attempt for revenge. Nate was forced to watch the game from the bleachers while Gina swung (which he did not feel confident about). But when Gina hit the ball, it hit over the banner, giving Kuddle Kittens a home run and a victory to the game. Then, Coach Calhoun handed Gina the SPOFFY (which is the Grand Trophy) much to Nate's dismay. Gina then taunted Nate over her hit.

On Chad Applewhite's suggestion, Nate Wright wrote a story about the Kuddle Kittens' victory. When Gina Hemphill-Toms peered over to see what he was writing, she became angry, claiming the Kuddle Kittens had not won by luck. When Nate reminded her that she owed him for helping her succeed in the Benjamin Franklin project, Gina's anger turned to fury, screaming and earning herself a detention from the librarian, Mrs. Hickson (and the first, and currently, only one she has ever received).